Our journey- from 8 week old pup, to agility dog, school dog, and trickster. Training thoughts, tips and lots of problem solving, photography and general musings on owning a silly and serious paradoxical Aussie Shepherd.

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sick pup

A really, really long week. Or… few days. I don’t know, I’ve lost track of time a bit here.

You might remember a few days ago I posted about how Lu had been sick, but was home, getting better, and I was tricking her into eating?
Well… that all fell to pieces the next morning when she still wasn’t her normal chirpy self and wouldn’t eat. Anything.

Back to the vets she went, and they took her in, called me mid-morning to tell me they were going to open her up and check out her stomach. The x-rays showed no obstructions so what the hell would it be?
So I spent the entirety of yesterday (Jesus, was it only yesterday?) freaking out – my little girl, in surgery…! The only surgery I ever wanted her to have was probably desexing somewhere down the road… but surgery, for some unknown ailment, on her stomach…

Trying to make her eat their special mush food. She wants none of it. Give her real shit, damnit.

Now, look, I’m normally a person to cry- I’m the first to admit it, I cry over everything. I cry when I’m stressed, I cry when I’m frustrated, when I’m hormonal, when I don’t get my way, when I get embarrassed, when I’m overly tired.. so, you can imagine, I cried an awful lot yesterday.

They found ulcers in Lu’s stomach that had been causing the blood she had vomited, and a heap of inflamation in her intestines and lymph nodes. Lymph nodes were apparently 3-4 times the normal size. They said, given how happy she was coming into the vet that they never expected her to be so bad inside- most dogs in that condition would have collapsed by then. Isn’t she a moron? “No, no, everything’s fine, let’s go do some tricks, ok? I’m all good!”

Not directly after surgery but after she’d woken up and the pain meds were wearing off a bit. No… possibly this morning. Yeah, maybe it was the day after surgery. I’m so confused.

We went and saw her after surgery and that’s never a great idea, is it? Drugged up dog, crashed out on her side, no recognition, no wagging tail, just puffing and hooked up to IVs, stomach shaved, tail bandaged up so she wouldn’t shit herself… Yeah, cue more tears.

And then she woke up a bit, so we went back, and she was there – a bit…

And a bit more this morning, and even more this afternoon, though still not eating. We got to take her for a little walk and I could see her coming back- getting into everything as she does.

Look! Despite having bandages and a shaved stomach, she can actually move!

Then the vet called this evening saying we could pick her up! I didn’t expect her home until tomorrow morning! So, she’s home. She has about 10 different meds she has to have, all of which she hates and will not make it easy for me to give her. Meanwhile, Mal is trotting around stressing out because weird shit is happening and he doesn’t understand, and one day I’m crying all day and we keep leaving and where’s his friend and why aren’t we going for walks or anywhere and why is he only trapped at home all the time and where’s his friend and why are you crying again and he hates it when I cry because maybe he’s done something wrong and everything’s bad and maybe if we open the car door he can just go in the car and then we can’t leave without him ever.

Case in point

So now she’s home, sleeping in her crate. We fought with her over her meds, I’m not sure who won. She needed to dig up every blanket or cushion in the house and rub her face all over the bed. I’m worried that with the force of her digging, she’s going to open up her stitches, and, as the vet so eloquently put it: “intestines all over the floor”. Thanks for that one. So now it’s time for tiny meals. Teeny tiny meals. 6+ meals a day. Half her normal food, split over 6+ meals. Ouch. The vet said that we can expect her to go from 18.5kg to about 15kg (damnit, that’ll all be muscle loss, too!) but too much food with the medication she’s on can cause her intestines to get blocked, and then they’d have to cut her open again. So I’m going to be really good. Small meals. Small meals no matter how hungry she looks. Cos the small meals means she’ll recover and then hopefully in a few weeks (and not longer than that!) she’ll be back to running on the beach with her friends, building her muscles back up, and getting back into training,

Picking her up from the vet this evening- there’s our happy, licky, excited pup. So, here’s her paraphernalia: e-collar (causes her to smash into things, going to see if I can find one of those inflatable ones), bandaged up front leg for IV (still on, incase she has to go back), tail bandaged (so she doesn’t get shit in her fur, nice), pants shaved off (no more pants of fire), back legs tied together (can thank Silvia for this one- Lu’s rear-end awareness means that she uses her back legs as hands to try and scratch the stitches in her stomach. Good one), fentanyl patch on her back-leg – slow release painkiller

Hey, I said I was confused about when to give her a break- looks like she made the decision easy on me!

All things going well (eating and drinking like a good girl), she should be able to stay home from now, apart from going back Monday to get her bandages off.

Tell you what, I’m really glad she has pet insurance right now – this excursion has more than paid for her cover for probably the next 10 years or so. So even if she never needs to go in for anything again, it’s been worth it.

Edited to add: Penny and Kim have been awesome throughout all of this, and Nic, who took Friday off work to look after me and be there for Lu even though I just went and cried in garage amongst my chopped up pieces of jump-wing timber. On the flip side, my mother’s contribution? This comment: “Hope she gets better soon” on the second Facebook post about Lu needing to go to the vet. Well, I’m glad to know how much she cares, and that she’s now made her feelings clear.

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7 thoughts on “sick pup”

Not yet, they sent off 2 different kinds of samples (culture and.. something?) to see… whether it will help, I don’t know. Could be ABC bacteria, which she could have picked up from eating poo, or drinking a puddle, or rolling in a dead animal.. y’know, so.. we’ll see.

Hopefully tomorrow they’ll know for sure what it was, cos obviously if it was a toxin in the garden or something then I’ll be looking to get rid of whatever it was!!
And yes I’m very glad too- the fact that she wasn’t interested in food at all was the big, big warning sign. Now whenever she turns up her nose at food (like she did today for some tinned vet food, which she then managed to manipulate me into giving her boiled chicken instead- can’t believe I fell for that trick!) I freak out thinking she’s gone downhill. But then she happily ate chicken. So, she’s fine, just being picky. 😉

Thanks, I hope so too! I’m just lucky that because she’s eating so little, she doesn’t have a lot of energy and just wants to sleep all the time. I can’t imagine trying to keep her confined and quiet on full Lumen-energy levels!

Oh horrible to hear. Lots of cuddles and pats and hope to read about a speedy recovery soon. Mum hated my recent visits to SASH with *%#* ticks. Thankfully just keeping me for observation but 48hrs the 1st time and 24hrs the 2nd was a LONG time (and mum did lots of tears too)